First, decouple the sports. Let each team representing a university seek out the most logical conference for it to be in. If football wishes to attach itself to a conference through thousands of miles away for the big money, let them to it. The schools other teams shouldn't be dragged along with that.
NCAA Division 1 has 133 football playing schools.
NCAA Division 2 has 163 football playing schools.
NCAA Division 3 has 240 football playing schools.
The NAIA, has no discernable reason for its existence, (it was created for the small colleges before the NCAA went to divisions), has 96 football playing schools. They used to have more but many of them have joined the NCAA in D2 or D3.
That's 632 four-year colleges with football teams.
We're almost a quarter of the way through this century. Used a mathematical formula to rank all 632 football programs 1-632 based on their results in this century.
Take the top 72 programs and organize them into eight 9 team conferences that make sense geographically. You play the other 8 conference teams plus four non-conference games, two of which must be from the top 72.
Conference championships are determined by conference records plus tiebreakers, if needed, the first of which is head-to-head. The second could be point differential in conference games.
The eight conference champions play in four New Year's Day Bowl games which will be the quarterfinals of the national championship tournament. The semi-finals would come a week later, hosted by bowl committees, then the title game a week later, also hosted by a bowl committee.
Now you've incorporated the conference schedules into the national playoff. You've kept the bowls alive. And you have a comprehensive playoff with everything being decided on the field, which should eliminate any controversies about who gets to play for the title.
Now take the next 72 programs and do the same thing with them but I'd have their semi-and quarterfinals in December in the home stadiums of the highest ranked teams. Their championships could be in the lesser bowls - but not on New Year's Day, which would be reserved for D1.
Do it again with the next 72, then the next 72 and on down. Each school plays 8 conference games, 2 non-conference games in the same division and two in other divisions - but not above or below the divisions adjacent to theirs. (D4 could play D3 and D5).
632/8 = 8 divisions plus 56 schools for Division 9, which would have 7 conferences. At last, we'd need one wild card - the highest rated non-conference champion.
You'd have (8x7 - 8 =) 48 playoff games taking place in December, followed by 8 championship games and 4 D1 quarterfinals in and around New Year's Day, the D1 semis and the title game. That should be plenty of meaningful action for football fans.
At the end of each decade, I'd have them redo the overall rankings and adjust the divisions so that teams that are dominate on one level have to move up and teams that have had trouble competing on one level have to move down, much like in English soccer. No more North Dakota State winning 9 national championships in 11 years or Mount Union and Whitewater playing for 7 consecutive championships. No more MacAlister losing 50 games in a row or Prairie View losing 80.
Don't worry - nothing ever happens the way I'd want it to happen.
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